


Unseen

by bratfarrar



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cursed Dean Winchester, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-03-15 06:24:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13607466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bratfarrar/pseuds/bratfarrar
Summary: Dean feels kind of stupid riding around with a blindfold on, but it's better than glancing over to the driver's seat and seeing only emptiness where Sam should be, or looking out the window and into a world devoid of people.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WetSammyWinchester](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WetSammyWinchester/gifts).



Dean feels kind of stupid riding around with a blindfold on, but it's better than glancing over to the driver's seat and seeing only emptiness where Sam should be, or looking out the window and into a world devoid of people. Or even evidences of them, like doors opening and shutting or dogs being taken for a walk; the curse is pretty thorough, and the resulting stutter-step of everything touched by human hands had started to give him a headache.

"You doing okay?" Sam's voice asks, tinny through the speaker on Dean's cellphone.

"Not really," Dean admits to the seemingly-empty car. "This is messing with my head more than I expected." If he tried to reach out to touch where he knew Sam must be, he'd just wind up pressing his hand against the seat back or the steering wheel or something. He'd given up on it after only a few attempts, creeped out by the lack of control over his own body. It was worse, somehow, than when skeezeball Cuthbert or the Oz-witch had done it. More insidious.

"You want to eat? It's pushing one o'clock."

He's not really hungry, but the distraction would be welcome, and they probably have another seven hours or so before they reach the bunker with its supplies for Sam to un-whammy him. "Yeah, sure. Your turn to pick, anyway."

"Drive-through? Or do you want me to just run in and grab something?" What Dean _wants_ is for them to just keep going and get home as quickly as possible, but that's not fair to Sam, who's already been driving for five hours on just about no sleep.

"You can just grab something, I guess." But then he imagines sitting alone in the parking lot, unable to see or hear if someone came along and knocked on his window-- "No, let's do drive-through."

A couple minutes later Sam pulls off into a parking lot that desperately needs to be repaved. "Hey, uh, maybe you should take the blindfold off while we're in here? Don't want anyone to think I'm kidnapping you or something."

There's a twinge of panic at the suggestion, but Dean grits his teeth and ignores it, forcing himself to pull the blindfold off in one quick jerk. Just like a band-aid, nothing to it.

Except that aside from Sam's voice over the phone, he's once again the only person left on earth.

"Wendy's? Still got a crush on those freckles and pigtails, I see," and it's a stupid big brother joke, the kind he doesn't make much anymore, but he has to say something to fill up the emptiness surrounding him. Maybe Sam can hear the desperation he's trying to cover, because he doesn't say anything in response, just pulls them around to the drive-through.

"Welcome to Wendy's, may I take your order?" And apparently a drive-through speaker can circumvent the curse just as well as a cellphone, which is enough to buoy Dean through another 10 minutes of silent, invisible people and items that move themselves when he blinks.

He leaves the blindfold off while he eats, and doesn't bother to put it back on after--Sam's going off on a rant about how _Red Sonja_ deserves to be remembered for more than just the actress's outfit, and then they have a nice bicker over whether or not it deserves to be called the third Conan movie. And yeah, it's still weird having the seat empty beside him, but they're just about the only car on the road now and there's nothing but rolling hills on either side, so he's able to deal with it.

At least until his phone starts beeping at him. "What's up?" Sam asks, and Dean's good mood abruptly evaporates when he sees that he's down to 5% battery.

"Have to recharge it," he says. Which wouldn't normally be an issue since they have an adapter in the glove compartment, but the connecting cable's been buggy recently and they haven't gotten around to replacing it yet.

He's going to have to hang up.

"Hey," Sam says, "I'm not going anywhere, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," Dean says to his phone, because he does know--he's just being dumb. "I'll--just take a nap, I guess." He's been up just as long as Sam has, after all. Still, he finds himself hesitating, thumb hovering over the power button. Has to force himself to press it.

"Bye," he says to the now-empty car.

Sleep takes awhile, but eventually he's able to doze off into uneasy dreams--he stalks the darkened halls of the bunker, searching endlessly for Sam, intent pulling heavy on his arm; every time he reaches for Sam, his brother dissolves away into curling black smoke; he calls Sam's phone, and calls and calls and _calls_ , and never gets anything more than his own mocking voice in response.

"--glazed donut?" Sam asks. "Sure, that sounds good."

Dean's neck and shoulder hurt, but that's okay--means he's probably awake again.

"It's dumb," Sam says. "You bitch about it every time, and then every time you drink the whole thing anyway and go back for your free refill."

"'Cause it's free," Dean mumbles back. "You don't turn down free coffee." When he opens his eyes, he's still alone in the car, but she's parked in front of a Gas-and-Go. He still can't see anyone, and it's still creepy, but there's a wad of tape wound around the charger cord that's hooked up to his phone, and the battery indicator's green and back up to 82%.

"Keep telling yourself that," Sam says, and then "Oh, hey--you're awake. What kind of snacks do you want?" Which leads to him reading off the contents of what must be nearly every shelf in the store, a comforting wash of words that keeps going even after Dean's placed his usual order for jerky and Doritos. He closes his eyes and listens to Sam making small talk with the person behind him in line and the cashier--and then muttered comments to himself about both as he must be walking back to the car. Through the phone, Dean can hear the Impala's door squeal open, and out of reflex he holds a hand out for his promised food--eyes still safely shut. "Careful," Sam says, but then there's a hot cup of coffee safely in Dean's hand and teriyaki jerky in his lap and almost all is well with the world.

The curse is stupid and witches are the worst, but Sam's still there, no matter how well he's currently hidden.


	2. Time stamp: Other Side of the Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rewinding a little....

Sam's distracted with trying to calculate if they have enough curse boxes to safely transport everything, so he doesn't turn to look when he hears Dean come down from the attic, just says "hey" and keeps mentally shuffling items around. The problem isn't so much storage space as it's the risk of surprise 'side effects' if the wrong objects get stored together. Once was enough to make him wary of risking it ever again.

"Sam?" Dean says from somewhere behind him.

"I think we're going to need a couple more boxes to be safe, especially if you found anything upstairs," Sam answers, still studying the eclectic contents of the table in front of him.

"Sam?" Dean says again, a little louder, and Sam feels a small surge of irritation.

"Dude, I'm _right here_ ," he says, turning towards Dean, who's--staring off down the hall for some reason.

" _Sam?_ " Dean calls it this time, voice pitched to carry. He has his gun out at the ready and his head cocked as if he's trying to hear something far away. He's not panicked yet, but Sam can see the tension in his stance, the way he's bracing for something unfriendly to hit him.

"Dean, I'm standing right behind you," Sam says, more gently now, stepping close enough to put a hand on Dean's arm, but when he tries, he winds up just gesturing awkwardly past Dean's shoulder.

_Crap._

First question is which one of them's been whammied--they're both wearing gloves, but Dean's definitely more likely to randomly touch things, and he's been rummaging around in the attic unsupervised for a good fifteen, twenty minutes. Judging by the look and sound of things, he's now about half a minute away from bolting off into the sprawling wreck of a mansion, and if he's not careful, the decaying house is just as likely to injure him as some of the nastier things left behind by its former inhabitant.

But magic--especially old magic, and this has the fairy-tale feel of it--doesn't always cope well with modern technology, so Sam pulls out his phone and texts DON'T PANIC, holding his breath during the half-second it takes for the message to transmit.

A moment later and Dean's frowning down at his phone. "If you're telling me not to panic, that probably means I should," he mutters, but his back and shoulders ease a little bit. He texts back "are you ok?", but before Sam can type in his reply, Dean's actually calling him, the phone buzzing anxiously in Sam's hand.

"Where are you?" Dean demands, and Sam licks his lips, hesitates a moment before answering, because Dean's probably not going to be able to hear him, but he can't not respond.

"I'm here," Sam says, his voice echoing out from the speaker on Dean's phone, and the instant relief on Dean's face is so strong it resembles deep sorrow. "I'm right beside you, Dean. I'm here."


	3. Now I See Face to Face

It's both easier and harder to deal with once they're back home again--they set themselves up in the library with the usual piles of books, laptops open and a Skype session running in the background: Sam's speakers muted and Dean with headphones on so Sam doesn't have to keep listening to his own voice echoing back at him. It's better than in the car, because Dean can look at the video and see Sam--pixelated, badly lit, but _there_. But the books still move themselves when Dean blinks, and the closeness to normality makes him bitterly aware of how easily they could adjust to this way of living and how much he doesn't want to. After a while he leaves Sam to it and goes to make dinner in the kitchen, where Sam wouldn't be anyway.

They'd been gone only a couple days so the food in the fridge is still mostly good, which means that he can make chicken-fried steak because he deserves some compensation for being whammied--and Sam's distracted enough at the moment that he'll probably eat it without commenting on the cholesterol count, which is always a plus.

Also a plus is the excuse to just pound on something for a little while, beating the steak to tender smithereens that get dunked and coated and fried to perfection. They have few slightly-shriveled potatoes in a bin on the bottom shelf of one of the racks, so he mashes them up as well, divvies everything up between two plates, and smothers it all in gravy. And he actually managed to distract himself enough with the process that it's a small shock to carry the plates into the library and find it empty.

He actually says, "Sam?" before remembering that it's pointless because the laptop's back in the kitchen, and with a muttered "Never mind," just puts the plate down on the nearest table before retreating back to the refuge of technology.

"We're going to figure this out," Skype-Sam tells him as soon as he's within view of the laptop camera. "I promise."

"I know," Dean says because he does even though he can't always believe it, and eats his chicken fried steak in awkward solitude. It's delicious, though the gravy's starting to congeal a little.

He tries to go back the library after the dishes are washed and put away, makes it another hour or so of paging futilely through handwritten log books before the combination of everything really does start to give him a headache. Sam's clearly on a roll, given the speed with which the books rearrange themselves while Dean's not looking, which is vaguely heartening but a definite strain on the eyes.

Usually he'd say 'good night', but Skype-Sam has his head down over a book bound in disintegrating leather and is taking rapid notes. So he just turns off his laptop and goes to catch what sleep he can--leery of bad dreams but well aware that staying up won't help things either. Rock and a hard place, the story of his life.

His bed's perfect, as always, so at least he's comfortable while he stares at the darkened ceiling, the little checker-pattern of light creeping past the air vent; wonders idly why there's never any cobwebs in the corners; tries not to feel guilty about leaving Sam to his sleepless research without even a pot of coffee for fortification.

He considers getting up to make some, but his eyelids feel kind of heavy so he lets them close for a couple of minutes while his brain keeps ticking through contingency plans for if Sam doesn't figure this thing out. Bobby's friend Pamela had rocked the wrap-around look, so Dean's willing to consider it a possibility despite his usual views on sunglasses worn indoors, but there's no way he's doing the stupid little white stick, and a seeing-eye dog would probably be out of the question entirely.....

He's slowly drowning in a sea of gravy when Bonham's drum intro kicks him out of sleep and scrambling for his phone, which has managed to wedge itself down between the headboard and mattress. "Sam?" he says, trying not to hope.

"Think I got it," Sam answers, exhausted but triumphant. "Come meet me in the kitchen."

He has the laptops and Skype set up already so Dean can see him (and the massive bags under his eyes), and an impressive array of ingredients spread out over the counter. "It's less complicated than I expected," he says, waving a hand at the mess behind him. "Just have to apply the substances in a particular order and avoid any cross-contamination between the ingredients."

"Oh, is that all?" But Dean obediently sits down at the table. "What do you need me to do?"

"Hold out your right hand and foot, close your eyes, and don't move until I tell you it's okay." Which is dumb, but Dean's been through enough of these rodeos to just sigh and follow Sam's instructions.

He can't help the flinch when something wet and tickly brushes across his eyelid--"I told you not to move," Sam scolds, and he has to go wash his face off with holy water so they can start over again--but in short order various bits of the right half of his body have been anointed via paintbrush with concoctions of oil and assorted herbs and Dean's sitting there holding his breath, feeling like an idiot with his arm and leg up in the air, while Sam rattles through an excessively long passage of Latin.

The Latin stops, and for a single terrifying moment Dean's certain that all they've done is made things worse, closing whatever loophole all their modern technology has been slipping through.

"Well?" he asks finally, eyes still shut, "did it do anything?" Whatever Sam painted onto his earlobe is beginning to itch horribly.

"I was just about to ask you that," Sam says, solidly in front of him and echoed a fraction of a second later by his Skype-self--and the awkward muddle of sound is possibly the most glorious thing Dean's ever heard.

"Hey," Sam says when Dean opens his eyes, and "Hey yourself," Dean says back in pure reflex, too glad to see Sam standing before him, hollow-eyed and unshaven, to give any thought to a response. "You look terrible."

"And whose fault is that--" Sam starts, breaks off when Dean stands up, walks the two steps needed to get in grabbing distance, and pulls Sam down into a hug, hooking his chin over Sam's shoulder for extra security. He can feel Sam's startled inhale, the shiver of muscle as he sways for a moment, off-balance. "Hey," Sam says again, and Dean can hear it entirely on his own, feel the sound of it muffled against the crook of his neck. There's nothing to keep him from gripping Sam a little tighter, finally able to touch and hold and hear again.

Hasn't even been thirty-six hours, somehow.

He keeps waiting for Sam to pull back, to make some comment about needing to clean up, go to bed, but Sam just holds on as well, and there's no reason to let go--until Sam's stomach makes a noise like a dying baby seal. "Pancakes?" he asks, finally releasing Sam, who scrubs at his face, considering.

"I could eat a short stack," he says. "Do you need me to get rid of all this?" He waves a vague hand at the mess on the counter.

"Nah," Dean tells him, pulling out the biggest mixing bowl. "I can just shove it over for now." Which he does while Sam turns off and closes the now-unneeded laptops at the table. One egg, the last of their milk, add in the dry ingredients--"You want chocolate chips in yours," he turns to ask, but Sam's got his head down on the table, eyes closed and sleep slowly easing the lines of his face. "Guess not," Dean says to himself, and sets the batter aside for later.

Perhaps he should jostle Sam awake and send him off to his proper bed, but for now he sits on the stool opposite him and watches Sam sleep, close enough to touch and unobscured by anything except Dean's own lingering weariness. Rests his head on his folded arms, close enough to feel the warmth off Sam's shoulder and neck. Listens to the quiet steadiness of Sam's breathing.

Still here, despite the curse. Despite everything, somehow.

He closes his own eyes and waits for Sam to wake again.


End file.
